A conventional control position indicator of an automatic change gear for a vehicle is constructed as shown in FIG. 1, for example. In such a structure, the indicator comprises an indicator plate 102 having initial characters of respective drive positions such as parking P, reverse R, neutral N and drive D on one side of a housing 100, a lighting device 103 for illuminating the indicator plate 102, and a slide plate 105 moved by a shift lever 104 on the other side of the housing 100.
An indicator window 106 is disposed in the indicator plate 102 corresponding to the respective characters in a position adjacent to an indicating portion 101. An unillustrated indicating hand is integrally disposed in the slide plate 105, and is moved by the operation of the shift lever 104. When the indicating hand is located just below the indicating window 106, the indicating hand indicates the drive position at that time.
In the conventional indicator plate 102 disposed in the control position display device, in order to make characters such as P, R, N, D, etc., of the indicating portion 101 look afloat, i.e., in order to provide the indication of a stereo-feeling for the characters, as shown in FIG. 2, an indicating substrate 108 made of transparent synthetic resin is formed on the rear side of the indicating plate 102 and has a recessed portion 107 in the shape of characters such as P, R, N, D, etc. Next, a coating material having predetermined colors is manually injected by an injector into the recessed portion 107 of the indicating substrate 108. Then, after the coating material is dried, the rear face of the indicating substrate 108 is coated with another coating material having a color as the background of the characters such as a black coating material, and is further coated with another coating material having a different color such as a white coating material, thereby manufacturing the indicator plate.
However, in the indicator plate 102 mentioned above, the coating materials are injected into the recessed portion 107 by an injector. Further, in the above indicator plate 102, the indicating substrate 108 having the recessed portion 107 in the shape of characters is formed on the rear side of the indicator plate 102, and a coating material is injected into the recessed portion 107 by the injector. Accordingly, in the conventional apparatus mentioned above, it is complicated to manufacture the apparatus and a skilled technique is needed.
Since the coating materials are used, it is necessary to carefully perform the coating operation such that the dust is not attached to the coated portions, and it is necessary to perform a dry operation after the respective coating operation. Therefore, it is very troublesome and it takes much time to manufacture the apparatus and defective products are often produced, and the manufacturing cost of the apparatus is expensive.